Egusi and catfish soup is quite easy to make. The process resembles that of the usual egusi soup, there is a little twist however. I want to show you how I made the delicious looking plate of soup below.
You will buy the catfish while it is still alive, kill and clean it up. The seller would assist you.

Usually when I want to make catfish soup, it is either with ofor or egusi. I believe I have told you how to make catfish soup with ofor and vegetables.

This soup is served with semo. I decided to make egusi soup with catfish in this recipe; you can also make egusi soup with anyone of the many other Nigerian fishes or meats.

Most people can easily figure out how I made this soup, or not. If you do it the wrong way, you will end up scattering the fishes. Most people don’t like it when the fish is scattered.

Those are cleaned and broken bonga fish, then crayfish and sliced red peppers.

Please buy the hand-pilled melon seeds and ground it yourself. There are several boys in most Nigerian market that offer the service of grinding food ingredients for a little fee.

Cut the fish to desired sizes, drop into a bowl and pour almost-boiled water on them. Wash off the slimy-outer skin and transfer into a clean bowl with water.

Grind your egusi, crayfish and pepper, then set aside. Wash the utazi, you want to remove about 50 percent of its bitterness. Wash and squeeze for about 3 minutes to achieve this.

Remove the head and center bone of the bonga fish, remove every visible bone and break into tiny bits. Wash and set aside.
Set your cooking pot on heat, add 7 cups of water and allow to boil. Add the bonga fish and allow to cook for up to 10 minutes. The Egusi and catfish soup combination can be made in just about 45 minutes. I think it is one of the easiest Nigerian soup.

Add crayfish, two cubes of maggi, pepper and salt to taste. You can add the ogiri or dawadawa at this point. Some people don’t like them. Add 200ml of palm oil and allow to boil for another 5 minutes before adding the ground egusi (melon seed)

Add the ground melon seed and stir so it doesn’t coagulate.
Add the washed-cleaned catfish immediately. Cover and allow to cook for nothing less than 10 minutes. You are allowed to stir carefully occasionally so it doesn’t get burned.
Finally, taste for salt, you can add another cube of maggi or knorr if you like, sprinkle the washed utazi on the top of the soup. Cover and allow to simmer for another 3 minutes and you are done with the making of a delicious pot of egusi-catfish soup.

I would love to read your comment, please use the comment box below. You can also try several other recipes on this blog, there are hundreds of them.

I love catfish very much and have tried the other soup recipe. This one looks really delicious and I am definitely going to give it a whirl soon. Can I just slice the utazi leaves instead of washing them? thanks.

Thanks for this very recipe. I am really going to try it out today. Will get you a feed back asap. God bless you real good and have a wonderful year ahead as God continue to increase you in wisdom IJN-Amen

tasting good already but wont the catfish scatter in the process of mixing the leave and egunsi? one will b extra careful sha. can u make one of ur weekly recipes a table of nutricious food for kids age 1-5yrs made with common nigerian foods? will appreciate